


In The Middle

by LemonsandRosemary



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: F/F, Fire and Ice, Four Way Relationship, Polyamory, There is no sex in this, anyway I love all these ladies, but there's an explicit sexual comment so that's why Explicit, multi relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21650656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonsandRosemary/pseuds/LemonsandRosemary
Summary: “Please, Kit,” Jacquelyn sipped the martini in her hand, not breaking eye contact with Kit, “it’s the twenty first century.”I report pedophilesDon’t interact with my fics if you post/read ageplay or sexual content that features minors, even if they’re aged up
Relationships: Georgina Orwell/Esmé Squalor, Olivia Caliban/Esmé Squalor/Georgina Orwell/Jacquelyn Scieszka, Olivia Caliban/Jacquelyn Scieszka, past Esmé Squalor/Kit Snicket
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	In The Middle

Esmé Squalor hinged her elbows on the picture rail behind her and surveyed the room. It was something she did frequently, and without reserve. She had absolutely no desire to remain inconspicuous in any aspect of her life. 

Streaks of white light refracted off dripping crystals from several chandeliers dotted around the ceiling. Esmé blinked slightly, clearing the dancing spots from her vision. Across the room, she picked Kit Snicket out of the crowd. Kit glowed in a dress that glittered under the diffused lighting. Black flecks winked at her in a waterfall down Kit’s thigh. Esmé took a breath and tried to suppress the nervous tingle in her chest. Kit caught her eye and waved, before striding across the marble floor towards her, heels clicking. 

Esmé grinned affectionately. She had always had a soft spot for Kit. If she was honest, she had a soft spot for most women with kind eyes that always looked slightly tired. 

Kit smiled, joining Esmé, “What can I get you?” 

“A martini, dry.” Esmé answered, catching Olivia’s eyes across the room. Olivia nodded. 

Esmé liked to think that there were lots of positive things about Kit, and there were. She could throw an axe with enough force to kill someone, and no one could decode secret messages transmitted on the back of an eagle faster, but she had absolutely no patience for Kit’s terrible choices with regards to her love life. 

With complete disregard for the usual social niceties of small talk, Esmé flashed Kit a grin, “What’s happening with your love life, Kit?” she asked, when Kit had returned with the drinks, in a tone that she knew wasn’t particularly polite. She watched Kit’s knuckles blanch as she gripped her highball glass far more tightly than was necessary. 

Esmé stole a glance across the room at Olaf. She watched him cackle as he raked his eyes inconspicuously up and down the Duke of Marlborough. The Duke was a handsome man, tall and broad where it counted. His skin was a rich umber. Esmé watched him adjust Olaf’s tie with his manicured thumbnail. She rolled her eyes. 

Kit frowned, “What do you mean what’s happening in my love life?” 

Esmé looked more pointedly at Olaf, “He wasn’t a particularly good choice, was he?”

Kit scoffed, “What about _your_ love life?” She dropped her voice to a whisper, but her tone remained low and angry, “You’re the one cheating on three women.”

It was all Esmé could do not to laugh. She neglected to answer, instead choosing to turn around and tilt her head at Georgina and Olivia who were stood across by the gilded arch entrance. 

Georgina stretched out a hand and tucked a loose piece of Olivia’s hair behind her ear. She trailed her hand down Olivia’s neck, hooking her finger into the delicate chain around Olivia’s neck, pulling her forward and pressing a chaste kiss to her lips. 

Kit frowned slightly, “Wait, what?” 

Esmé’s eyes lit up as Jacquelyn approached, clutching a martini glass. 

"Hello, darling.” She grinned, trawling the word languidly. She pressed a kiss to Jacquelyn’s cheekbone, which in actuality was more of a cautious bump to her jaw in order to avoid smudging dark lipstick across Jacquelyn’s face. 

Kit sighed, “What have you all gotten yourselves into?” She directed the question at Jacquelyn, having not had any helpful responses from Esmé. Jacquelyn draped her arm loosely across Esmé’s shoulder, Esmé twisted a finger into the belt loop at Jacquelyn’s hip. 

“Please, Kit,” Jacquelyn sipped the martini in her hand, not breaking eye contact with Kit, “it’s the twenty first century.” 

Esmé felt a fingertip drift across one of her shoulder blades, accompanied by the click from Georgina’s shoes on the marble floor. Esmé watched Georgina reach her arm across and pluck Jacquelyn’s martini glass out of her hand before draining it and discarding it on a nearby low-table. 

“Sorry, Jacquelyn, the bartender thinks I’m dead, so it’s been a rather dry evening for me.” Esmé rolled her eyes and handed her glass over. 

“Who is she?” Olivia questioned, fingers threaded through Georgina’s. 

“Who? The bartender?” Georgina asked, waiting for Olivia to nod, “She’s an ex. It went badly.” 

Esmé snorted, fiddling with a ring on her forefinger now that her grip was devoid of a glass, “Did it? Or could you just not be bothered leaving a forwarding address?” 

“I am getting far more of an insight into this than I think I ever wanted.” Kit asserted, “Olivia, shall we get more drinks?” She asked, leaving Esmé and Georgina to bicker about the precise politics of pretending one was dead rather than ending a relationship normally. She heard Jacquelyn’s gravelly laugh behind them as Olivia stalked towards the bar. 

Olivia shuffled herself onto a bar stool and looked into Kit’s golden eyes. 

She tilted her head, “What is it about this that bothers you?” 

Kit rolled her eyes, “I need about six more drinks before I answer that question.” Olivia shrugged and Kit flicked her eyes over the bartender. She was solidly built with honey coloured hair, scraped back into a bun. 

She smiled widely as she approached Kit, “What’ll it be?” She asked, in a deep southern drawl. Kit sighed slightly, what was it with Georgina and women with accents?

“Long Island iced tea for me and…” she trailed off, allowing Olivia to speak for herself. 

“A strawberry daiquiri, please.” Olivia blinked widely at the other woman. If Kit didn’t think better of her, she would have labelled the way Olivia flopped her elbow onto the bar with a wink as flirting. 

Kit hadn’t ever really considered Olivia as a person with much interest in romance. She always seemed to have her head buried in a book, or in work. Kit had only ever really seen Olivia perpetually rushed off her feet trying to corral unruly children into quiet reading time. Either that or she was on notice trying to prevent someone from being assassinated. Regardless, she had always seemed disinterested in relationships. 

A dull clatter reached her ears as the bartender shook Olivia’s daiquiri, “I’m Nicole,” she had gushed to Olivia, “I’m only in the city for a few months, I have a boyfriend back home in Alabama.” Kit raised her eyebrows and questioned how significantly thoughts of her boyfriend had featured when Georgina was tongue deep inside her. 

She looked over at the three other women, Esmé giggled in a way she rarely did. Kit remembered Esmé years ago. She used to giggle like that more often. Georgina’s shoulders had slackened slightly, now that she was two drinks in. She was busy flashing her teeth at Jacquelyn over the top of Esmé’s head, hand buried in the pocket of Esmé’s sharply tailored navy blazer. 

Kit jumped slightly when a glass was presented to her. She nodded to the bartender, immediately draining half of the glass through a paper straw that she didn’t trust not to disintegrate at any moment. 

“How did it start?” Kit asked, hoping the line of inquiry would remain relatively neutral. 

Olivia sipped her drink, wincing at the slight edge of rum, “Well,” she considered the best way to answer the question without revealing more than she imagined Kit wanted to hear, “Jacquelyn invited us to her house once. It was a while ago, you were out of the city, Josephine was in Egypt with Ike, and Beatrice was tied up with a performance of some kind up town. Plus, I’ll admit, I’m usually mildly concerned about Esmé cooped up by herself, she gets obsessive.” Kit tilted her head in a way that she hoped came off as non-committal. She knew of Esmé’s obsessive tendencies all too well. Olivia used the tips of her fingers to pull the strawberry fan off the top of her drink and put it in her mouth. She wrinkled her nose at the sour taste, but swallowed it regardless. 

“I don’t know how much you were aware of,” Olivia darted her eyes at Esmé and Georgina. Esmé had put Georgina in a skin tight dress that ended just above her knees in a deep midnight blue. She watched her run the tip of her finger across the seam at Georgina’s hip, eyes glittering and full of an impish look that really only Georgina knew how to handle. Olivia had tried once, it ended in some hurt feelings, largely on her part. 

She turned back to Kit, “Esmé and Georgina have been,” she tried to choose a word that didn’t imply that the relationship was primarily one of fraught sexual gratification, despite the fact that it absolutely was, “together, for a while.” 

Kit raised her eyebrows and whispered, lest Esmé Squalor hear her and decide to get even, “How long has this been going on?” 

Olivia shrugged, “Esmé and Georgina have been together since I joined the V.F.D. at least.”

Kit shook her head, “I knew about them, those two have been fucking since the beginning of time probably. I meant you and Jacquelyn.” Kit took another significant mouthful of her drink, “How did you two end up attached to _that_?” Kit sneered, referring to Esmé and Georgina. Olivia’s chest clenched slightly. 

“They’re nice, Kit.” Olivia insisted. 

Kit narrowed her eyes, “Are they nice or are they exciting?” 

Olivia tried not to be hurt. She watched Esmé roll her eyes exaggeratedly at Georgina before striding over to the bar. She stood behind Olivia, flashing a grin at Kit. She wasted no time in curling a finger into Olivia’s hair. Olivia caught the scent of whatever perfume she was wearing. Deep and heady. She tried not to close her eyes and lean into the touch, suspecting Kit wouldn’t approve. 

“I’ve been sent to fetch drinks.” She explained before catching the eyes of the bartender. 

Esmé asked the bartender for three tumblers of whiskey, one with rocks, before clutching them all delicately in long fingers and bringing them back to Georgina and Jacquelyn. She threw her head round as she was halfway across the ballroom and threw Kit a wink. Kit’s stomach clenched. 

Kit whipped round to Olivia, “They’re far more dangerous than you think they are.” She muttered, “Georgina in particular. She’s all bite.”

Olivia held her breath. She remembered the first night in Jacquelyn’s apartment with Georgina’s fingers tangled gently in her hair. She blushed and hid behind her drink. 

She saw the look on Kit’s face, “It’s not that I don’t believe you I just-”

“You’re just not prepared to listen to me.” Kit interrupted. “You’re caught up in some schoolgirl fantasy.” 

Olivia felt a twinge of anger shoot through her, “It’s not a fantasy, Kit, it’s my relationship structure.” Seeing the face Kit pulled, she placed her feet on the floor and stood up, looking down at Kit, “Get back to me when you’ve had those other five drinks.” Before stalking off to find Jacquelyn. 

Jacquelyn appeared from behind a pillar, “She didn’t take it well, huh?” 

Olivia collapsed onto Jacquelyn’s chest and sighed, “I really didn’t think this would be that hard.” 

Jacquelyn stroked her thumb across Olivia’s shoulder blade. She had suspected, more than Olivia, that this might be difficult. Olivia had the type of boundless optimism that failed to appreciate that, sometimes, people were awkward for the sake of it. 

Jacquelyn remembered the conversation the four of them had shared the previous night. 

Esmé draped herself across Georgina’s couch, head resting on its plush back, staring at the ceiling, “I mean, I, for one, am perfectly fine with it. I mean, I like fucking you in coat closets, Georgie, but it would be nice to be able to hold hands with any of you in front of other people.” 

Georgina cast a glance at the yellowing bruise on Esmé’s neck, “You’re going to keep fucking me in coat closets though, right?” 

Esmé snorted, “God, yes.” 

Olivia blushed. She left the semi-public sex up to Esmé and Georgina. She recalled Esmé propositioning her once in a bathroom at the opera, but she couldn’t convince herself that doing more than kissing in a bathroom was sensible, or hygienic. 

She shrugged, “I think I’d like it if people knew, too.” The quad had been together for going on six months and, while it may not have been a particularly long time for conventional relationships, Olivia figured that she had jurisdiction to at least double that, given that their relationship was twice the size of most people’s. 

Jacquelyn hesitated. She was usually the most level headed of the group. Both Georgina and Esmé were recklessly passionate, and Olivia was the most intelligent woman Jacquelyn thought she had ever met, but she was also naively optimistic and Jacquelyn feared that she would end up sorely disappointed. 

“I’m happy to do this,” she paused, “but I think that it might not go the way we hope it will.” 

Olivia sensed that Jacquelyn was talking to her in particular. Esmé and Georgina largely didn’t care less what other people thought, at least most people, and besides, Olivia was sure that their relationship would outlast whatever this foursome was. If this ended, Esmé and Georgina would retreat to dressing rooms and toilet cubicles, probably until one of them broke a hip. 

She stretched her fingertips out and twirled the ring on Jacquelyn’s forefinger. 

“It’s okay,” she said. She just hoped it was true. 

Jacquelyn released Olivia from her grip, “Want me to talk to Kit?” 

“No, no, it’s okay.” Olivia sighed. She hoped Kit would come round. She felt, more than heard, Esmé and Georgina approach from behind her. 

Esmé brushed an imaginary piece of lint off Olivia’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Georgina asked, pressing a kiss to the top of Olivia’s head. 

Olivia nodded, she didn’t particularly want to discuss the incident further, fearing the threat of tears edging into her throat. Georgina wrapped an arm around Olivia’s shoulder and pressed Olivia towards her chest. Olivia allowed the warmth of the contact to flow through her. She opened her eyes and saw Esmé, teeth bared, muttering something to Jacquelyn. 

“She’s so rude, Jacquelyn.” Esmé tapped her nails on the glass top of a nearby table.

“Now is not the time, love.” Jacquelyn tried her best to deescalate the situation.  
Esmé rolled her eyes, still hissing something about keeping one’s thoughts to oneself. 

Olivia sighed, looking up at the glinting lights in the high tiled ceiling, “Let’s go home.” 

Jacquelyn smiled, “She’ll come around. I promise.” 

Later that evening, curled between Jacquelyn and Georgina, feeling Esmé’s arm draped across her midriff, Jacquelyn’s hand tangled in her hair, Olivia decided that she couldn’t care less what Kit might think.

**Author's Note:**

> This was SO FUN. Expect to see more of these gals together tbqh. Thank u olivia-calidamn on tumblr for coming up with the ship name!!!! Thank you for reading lmk what you think xoxo


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